Chapters from Starting & Sustaining

As a new founder, you’re in a position to design your business and life the way you want to. If the standard way of doing something feels wrong, use it as an opportunity to do the right thing rather than the corporate thing.

Feedback will either be plentiful or non-existent, but once it’s plentiful, don’t ever take it for granted. Maintain a conversation with customers and always dig deeper. Be thankful they took the time to share, and be honest about how you plan to act–or not act–on their feedback.

It’s easy to forget when you’re focused on shipping, but you have to keep your customers in the loop. Tell them what’s coming, and help them prepare for transitions. Let them know when you have to go offline for emergencies and other planned downtime. Always strive to keep the lines of communication open and honest.

Support is a reactive approach to helping your customers. These days, you want to be more proactive. And you absolutely want to help customers in the places and media they’re comfortable with. Scale carefully, but always go out of your way to give great support and learn from your customer requests.

When you eventually make a mistake that affects customers, you’ll be tempted to sugarcoat the problem. This is a terrible idea. Honesty and transparency are best, combined with a clear and well-documented explanation of your path forward to prevent it from ever happening again.

Products, Services, & Tools

There’s a better way to talk with your customers. Help Scout is designed with your customers in mind. Provide email and live chat with a personal touch, and deliver help content right where your customers need it, all in one place, all for one low price.

Overwelmed?
Start with the online book. It will walk you through all of the operational aspects of building and launching your own SaaS application with less pain and fewer mistakes.→ Read free online now